Al-Darb Diya is Arabic, meaning "The Shining Avenue". DDMA is my news blog on blogspot. It started on the second of January 2009. This blog contains certain news articles that I chose to put on here. Some of my own individual news articles might appear here. Hostile, negative and spam comments would be rejected. Most of the posts are NOT written by me, and some have the link to where I got them from originally. I welcome people to ask me to post any other news they don't find on DDMA.

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Wednesday, March 29, 2017

Al-Qaeda's former affiliate in Syria has thrown itself into a violent, desperate attempt to impose its will on other rebel groups, but its actions can only polarize and damage the hopes of the Syrian revolution, according to analysts.

Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, the group formerly known as the Nusra Front, this week unleashed its fury on other groups it said were "conspiring" to undermine it by co-operating with the government of President Bashar al-Assad in peace talks in Astana.

It comes as JFS has in the past few weeks failed in a bid to create a new rebel coalition, and found itself isolated and facing a multi-front offensive: Russian, US and Syrian attacks on its positions, exclusion from ceasefire deals - and local JFS commanders are reported to believe that local rebels are now providing coordinates for the strikes.

Its response has been severe: in one day of fighting on Wednesday on the fringes of Aleppo province, JFS attacked with sufficient force to destroy Jaish al-Mujahideen, a group allied with the Free Syrian Army and armed by the US, which had withstood months of bombardment by Assad during the battle for the provincial capital.

But analysts say while JFS had proved its unquestioned military prowess, such action has fractured an already weak rebel front with no guarantee of boosting its own position.

Aymenn Jawad al-Tamimi, Jihad-Intel Research Fellow at the Middle East Forum, said JFS has grown steadily aware that some rebel groups were actively opposed to its presence in Idlib, the last bastion of rebel power after the fall of Aleppo.

“I think part of this is rooted in JFS' perception of a conspiracy against it with the broader attempts to isolate the group,” he told Middle East Eye. "There wasn't really rebel unity in Idlib to begin with."

The retreat of some groups from Aleppo into Idlib had hardened that perception, he said.

“I have no doubt about the broader attempts to isolate JFS as being a US strategy. And to an extent, you can perceive the effect in the wider [rebel] reluctance to offer JFS condolences for casualties in air strikes.”

The presence of al-Qaeda-affiliated groups in the Syrian opposition has long been the most contentious factor in the country’s six-year civil war.

Reactions to the militant group have ranged from outright opposition to sometimes reluctant cooperation with many other rebels recognizing Nusra, or JFS, as one of the most potent and experienced fighting forces in the country.

JFS began its assault on Tuesday, primarily targeting a base belonging to Jaish al-Mujahideen, a Free Syrian Army group which has previously received CIA support. Clashes then spread to numerous other sites in Syria including opposition strongholds such as Maraat al-Numan, Kafranbel, Saraqeb and Ariha.

Clashes broke out last week between JFS and their erstwhile allies Ahrar al-Sham and other rebel group and unlike previous disputes, appear to have escalated. On Thursday, Ahrar al-Sham, one of the larger forces in the region, said six groups had joined in the face of the JFS onslaught.

On Tuesday, Ahrar al-Sham released a statement criticizing JFS for their attacks on other groups "without any justification or legitimate reason” and said it would help their “enemies” in isolating JFS from the other rebel groups.

“We will join our brothers in the rest of the factions... to prevent JFS (or others) columns to go and attack Muslims and harass them and wrongfully take their blood and money,” read the statement.

Though the statement appeared largely defensive, Syria analyst Charles Lister said on Twitter that Ahrar al-Sham were threatening a “full declaration of war”.

Labib al-Nahhas, a media representative for the group later warned JFS on Twitter that it “either completely joins the revolution or it is a new Islamic State”.

In turn, JFS said in a statement accusing other rebels of involvement in "conspiracies" and being backed by "foreign projects".

"We attempted to make a coalition, with the open hearts of friendship... even though writers and fatwas said it would be 'suicide' to form a coalition with us", read the statement, released on Tuesday.

"After the coalition failed, bombing by the international coalition began, and we were targeted in several locations. Leaders were also targeted. The message from this is clear: we were first sidelined, and then targeted, while other rebel groups were building close relations with the US"

"We call for the establishment of a single, united Sunni force, both political and military... We stress the importance of working fast and cooperatively to achieve this goal."

By midday on Wednesday Jaish al-Mujahideen had been effectively destroyed and their bases and weapons confiscated by JFS.

The roots of the fighting

The current round of fighting appears to have been largely sparked off due to an on-going dispute over the presence of another militant group, Jund al-Aqsa, who were absorbed into JFS’s ranks in October.

While Jund al-Aqsa had historically been linked to al-Qaeda, many other rebel groups accused them of being a front for IS and questioned the decision by JFS to allow them to join. This eventually escalated to the point where, after alleging numerous violation by Jund al-Aqsa, Ahrar al-Sham launched an operation to “annihilate” the group at the weekend.

Though JFS announced on Monday that they had expelled Jund al-Aqsa, the damage appears to have been done and violence continued unabated between JFS and other rebel groups, particularly those with representatives currently participating in the Astana negotiations.

These incidents do not mark the first time that JFS has attacked other rebel groups - previously, it had effectively crushed both the Syrian Revolutionaries Front and the US-trained Hazm Movement in northern Syria, while in March 2016 mass protests erupted against JFS after it attacked and kidnapped members of the FSA’s 13th Division.

However, while SRF and Hazm were unpopular organisations heavy links to the US, Jaish al-Mujahideen are much more popular and therefore, according to Lister, could have a much bigger impact.

Following the clashes, rebel groups appear to have started setting out their alliances in different camps. Jaish al-Mujahideen are reportedly in negotiations to join the more powerful Ahrar al-Sham, while the Sham Front, Faylaq al-Sham and Jaish al-Islam also fell on side with the group.

Conversely Nour al-Din al-Zenki appears to have thrown its lot in with JFS.

What then, does this mean for the future of Syria's rebels?

Hassan Hassan, an associate fellow at Chatham House, said the infighting was not a rerun of 2014, where rebel factions including what was then Nusra united to turn on Islamic State fighters and kick them out of Idlib and Aleppo.

JFS' actions meant rebels were in fact heading for further fragmentation while JFS consolidated its power: "JFS as an overlord."

Haid Haid, also an associate fellow at Chatham House, added that JFS was undoubtedly powerful and no one, at this stage, was prepared to directly oppose them.

"JFS has been able to prove once again that they are able to eliminate any threat they might want to and no one will stop them," he told Middle East Eye.

And any counter plan to eliminate the group, was a long way off.

“Jaish al-Mujahideen and others don’t want to have this fight because they don’t want to do this alone - they know that others were not ready to fight alongside them against JFS.

Haid added that JFS had specifically blamed Jaish al-Mujahideen for providing the US coalition with their location for air strikes and "that’s why they’re being targeted".

He said that despite the threats against JFS from and other rebel groups, they had largely stood by while JFS eliminated Jaish al-Mujahideen - many groups wanted to see JFS gone, but there was no united front against them.

“Many groups want to see that, but the problem is how to do that - they are not able to start fighting JFS until they see a political solution to the conflict in Syria," he said.

“They will hope that the international community will have a clear strategy to weaken and eliminate JFS, but at this point it’s quite difficult to imagine what kind of strategy that would be."

For now, rebels opposed to JFS need to bide their time and re-asses their options.

Tamimi said that there were effectively two paths open to the rebels this stage: get closer to Turkey, which is prosecuting a campaign in northern Syria and considers JFS a "terrorist group", or get closer to JFS themselves.

"Each option has its pitfalls," he said. "Neither can achieve the original goal of the revolution at this point, but Turkey is more likely to ensure the survival of more mainstream factions."

Syrian Islamist rebel group Ahrar al-Sham said on Thursday six other rebel factions had joined its ranks in northwestern Syria in order to fend off a major assault by a powerful jihadist group.

The hardline Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, once allied with al-Qaeda and formerly known as the Nusra Front, attacked Free Syrian Army (FSA) groups west of Aleppo this week, accusing them of conspiring against it at peace talks in Kazakhstan this week.

Ahrar al-Sham, which presents itself as a mainstream Sunni Islamist group, sided with the FSA groups and said Fateh al-Sham had rejected mediation attempts.

The Ahrar statement said that any attack on its members was tantamount to a "declaration of war", and it would not hesitate to confront it.

Ahrar al-Sham is considered a terrorist group by Moscow and did not attend the Russian-backed Astana peace talks.

But it said it would support FSA factions that took part if they secured a favorable outcome for the opposition.

The Ahrar al-Sham statement also mentioned a sixth group, the Sham Revolutionary Brigades, and "other brigades" had joined alongside these five.

The attack by Fateh al-Sham had threatened to wipe out the FSA groups which have received backing from countries opposed to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, including Gulf Arab states, Turkey and the United States.

While Jabhat Fateh al-Sham has often fought in close proximity to FSA rebels against Assad, it also has a record of crushing foreign-backed FSA groups.

EDINBURGH, Scotland (AP) — Scottish lawmakers voted Tuesday to seek a new referendum on independence, presenting the British government with an unwelcome distraction as it prepares to push the European Union exit button.

The Edinburgh-based legislature voted 69-59 to ask the U.K. government to sanction an independence vote that would be held within the next two years. Outside, several dozen independence supporters bearing Scottish and EU flags broke into cheers and tears of joy as they heard the news.

Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, who asked lawmakers to authorize her to request the referendum, says Scots must be given the chance to vote on their future before Britain leaves the European Union.

British Prime Minister Theresa May plans to launch the U.K's two-year process of exiting the EU on Wednesday by triggering Article 50 of the bloc's key treaty. Britain as a whole voted to leave the bloc in a referendum last year, but Scots voted by a large margin to stay.

"Scotland's future should be in Scotland's hands," Sturgeon told lawmakers before the vote. Scottish voters rejected independence in a 2014 referendum that Sturgeon's Scottish National Party called a once-in-a-generation vote. But Sturgeon says Brexit has altered conditions dramatically.

She says there should be a new plebiscite on independence between fall 2018 and spring 2019, when details of Britain's divorce terms with the bloc are clear. Sturgeon said that whatever the final terms, Brexit would mean "significant and profound" change for Scotland.

"That change should not be imposed upon us," she said. "We should have the right to decide the nature of that change." May, whose government must approve the referendum for it to be legally binding, says the time is not right. She says all parts of the U.K. — England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland — must pull together to get the best-possible deal with the EU.

Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson agreed, saying Tuesday that Scots do not want "the division and rancor of another referendum campaign." The Scottish parliament had been due to vote on Sturgeon's referendum demand last week, but the session was adjourned after Wednesday's extremist attack in London.

Sturgeon's referendum call was backed by the governing Scottish nationalists and the Greens, and opposed by the Conservative and Labour parties. It's unclear what could break the stalemate between Edinburgh and London. British officials have indicated they would not agree to another independence referendum until Britain's EU exit is over and done with — a process that could take longer than two years.

David Mundell, the British government's Scotland minister, said the U.K. government would not be "entering into negotiations on whether there should be another independence referendum during the Brexit process."

"It's not appropriate to have a referendum whilst people do now know what the future relationship between the U.K. and the EU will be," he said. Sturgeon said after the vote that she would "seek sensible and constructive discussion" with the British government later this week.

"I hope the United Kingdom government will respect the view of parliament," she said. "This is simply about giving people in Scotland a choice." Should that fail, Sturgeon promised to inform the parliament of next steps after its Easter break next month.

In Edinburgh, supporters of Scottish independence urged Sturgeon to forge ahead. Scott Murray, a 71-year-old music tutor, said the vote for Brexit had changed everything. "I think we should have another referendum," Murray said. "I feel that we are divorced from what happens in the south of England and we should be our own country and stand on our own two feet."

But plumber Brian Hamilton, 45, said he'd be happier if members of the Scottish National Party government "got on with their day jobs" rather than focusing on Europe. "They say they speak for the people of Scotland, but they don't speak for the people of Scotland because they are not representing me whatsoever," he said.

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Thousands of Poles marched through Warsaw on Saturday, waving European Union and Polish flags in a show of support for the troubled European project as leaders in Rome marked the 60th anniversary of its founding treaty.

The rally in Warsaw, which was held under the slogan "I Love You, Europe," was also a strong expression of disapproval for the nationalist and Euroskeptic government in Warsaw, which was recently involved in a bitter standoff with the bloc.

Thousands of people began their demonstration by singing European anthem "Ode to Joy" followed by the Polish national anthem before marching to the Royal Castle in historic town center. Government critics fear that the government policies could ultimately result in Poland leaving the EU.

"We will not let ourselves be led out of Europe," Ryszard Petru, the head of the opposition Modern party, told those gathered. He also said that the ruling Law and Justice party's stance on Europe doesn't reflect the will of the nation, which is overwhelmingly pro-EU. Recent opinion polls put support for the EU by Poles at around 80 percent.

The Polish government denies that leaving the EU is its aim and insists that it instead simply wants reforms and wants to keep the bulk of power with national governments, not in Brussels. The recent tensions centered around stiff opposition by the conservative Polish government to the re-election of Donald Tusk, a former Polish prime minister, as head of the European Council. Tusk has long been a bitter political rival of Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the head of the ruling Law and Justice party and the most powerful politician in Poland.

Before the EU meeting in Rome, Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydlo had also threatened not to endorse the declaration. But on the eve of the summit she backed away from the position and signed it on Saturday.

ROME (AP) — With Britain already heading out the door, the 27 remaining European Union nations on Saturday sought to keep the bloc moving forward by enshrining a pledge to give member nations more freedom to form partial alliances and set policy when unanimity is out of reach.

They marked the 60th anniversary of their founding treaty as a turning point in their history in the knowledge that British Prime Minister Theresa May will officially trigger divorce proceedings from the bloc next week, a fact that European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker called "a tragedy."

Desperately trying to portray that sustained unity is the only way ahead in a globalized world, being able to walk away from a summit without acrimony was already a sort of victory. "We didn't have a major clash or conflict, contrary to what many thought," Juncker said.

EU Council President Donald Tusk said that sustained unity was the only way for the EU to survive. "Europe as a political entity will either be united, or will not be at all," he told EU leaders at a solemn session in precisely the same ornate hall on the ancient Capitoline Hill where the Treaty of Rome founding the EU was signed on March 25, 1957.

To move ahead though, the leaders recognized that full unity on all things will be unworkable. "We will act together, at different paces and intensity where necessary, while moving in the same direction," said the Rome Declaration signed by the 27 nations.

The EU has often done that in practice in the past, with only 19 nations in the eurozone and not all members participating in the Schengen zone of borderless travel. It has already extended to social legislation and even divorce rules among EU nationals.

So German Chancellor Angela Merkel sought to assuage fears that it would lead to a further unraveling of unity. "The Europe of different speeds does not in any way mean that it is not a common Europe," Merkel said after the ceremonies. "We are saying here very clearly that we want to go in a common direction. And there are things that are not negotiable," highlighting the EU freedom of movement, goods, people and services.

In a series of speeches, EU leaders also acknowledged how the bloc had strayed into a complicated structure that had slowly lost touch with its citizens, compounded by the severe financial crisis that struck several member nations over the past decade.

Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni, who was hosting the summit, said that over the past dozen years the EU's development had stalled. "Unfortunately, we stopped" he said, and "it triggered a crisis of rejection."

At the same time though, the summit in sun-splashed springtime Rome, where new civilizations were built on old ruins time and again, there also was a message of optimism. "Yes, we have problems, yes there are difficulties, yes there will be crisis in the future, but we stand together and we move forward," Gentiloni said. "We have the strength to start out again."

At the end of the session, all 27 leaders signed the Rome Declaration saying that "European unity is a bold, farsighted endeavor." "We have united for the better. Europe is our common future," the declaration said.

LONDON (AP) — Britain is set to formally file for divorce from the European Union, ending a 44-year relationship following the decision made by U.K. voters in a referendum nine months ago. Prime Minister Theresa May is due to tell House of Commons Wednesday afternoon that she has invoked Article 50 of the EU's key treaty, the trigger for a two-year countdown to Britain's exit.

At the same time, Britain's EU envoy, Tim Barrow, will hand-deliver a letter from May, which she signed Tuesday at her 10 Downing St. office, to EU Council President Donald Tusk. May's office says she will tell lawmakers that the U.K. is embarking on a "momentous journey" and should unite to forge a "global Britain."

Britain and the EU have two years to unpick a tapestry of rules, regulations and agreements stitched over more than four decades since Britain joined what was then the European Economic Community in 1973.

EU officials are due to circulate draft negotiating guidelines within days, and bloc leaders — minus May — will meet April 29 to adopt a common position. Britain says it's not turning its back on its neighbors and wants to remain friends. May has said that the U.K. will become "stronger, fairer, more united and more outward-looking" and will seek "a new, deep and special partnership with the European Union."

But many British businesses fear the impact of leaving the EU's vast single market of some 500 million people. Senior British officials say they are confident of striking a close new free-trade relationship with the bloc — but a successful outcome to the complex and emotionally fraught negotiations is far from certain.

Brexit has profound implications for Britain's economy, society and even unity. The divisive decision to leave the EU has given new impetus to the drive for Scottish independence, and undermined the foundations of Northern Ireland's peace settlement.

It's also a major blow to the EU, after decades of expansion, to lose one of its largest members. Anti-EU populists including French far-right leader Marine Le Pen hope the impulses that drove Britain to turn its back on the EU will be repeated across the continent.

MINSK, Belarus (AP) — Police in the Belorussian capital have begun wide-scale arrests protesters who had gathered for a forbidden demonstration that they hoped would build on a rising wave of defiance of the former Soviet republic's authoritarian government.

About 700 people had tried to march along Minsk's main avenue, but were blocked by a cordon of riot police wielding clubs and holding shields. After a standoff, arrests began. "They're beating the participants, dragging women by the hair to buses. I was able to run to a nearby courtyard," demonstrator Alexander Ponomarev said.

There were no immediate figures on how many people were taken into custody. Earlier, police raided the office of the human-rights group Vesna. About 30 of its activists were detained, said Oleg Gulak of the Belorussian Helsinki Committee.

In the days preceding the demonstration, more than 100 opposition supporters were sentenced to jail terms of three to 15 days, Vesna reported before the raid. Prominent opposition figure Vladimir Neklayev reportedly was pulled off a train by police during the night while trying to travel to Minsk.

Belarus has seen an unusually persistent wave of protests over the past two months against President Alexander Lukashenko, who has ruled since 1994. After tolerating the initial protests, authorities cracked down. Lukashenko this week alleged that a "fifth column" of foreign-supported agitators was trying to bring him down.

Saturday's demonstrators shouted slogans including "shame" and "basta (enough)" and deployed the red-and-white flag that is the opposition's symbol. The flag was first used by the short-lived independent Belorussian People's Republic in 1918 and again after independence from the Soviet Union, but was replaced in 1995 after Lukashenko gained power.

In his 23 years as president, Lukashenko has stifled dissent and free media and retained much of the Soviet-style command economy. The protests this year initially focused on his unpopular "anti-parasite" law that calls for a $250 tax on anyone who works less than six months a year, but doesn't register with the state labor exchange. But the protests broadened into general dissatisfaction with his rule, which some critics have characterized as Europe's last dictatorship.

Protests attracted hundreds on Saturday in Brest and Grodno, two other large cities. No arrests were immediately reported.

BENI, Congo (AP) — The bodies of an American and a Swedish investigator with the United Nations and their Congolese interpreter were found in Central Kasai province, authorities said Tuesday, more than two weeks after they disappeared while looking into recent violence there.

"After tests ... it is possible to identify the bodies as the two U.N. experts and their interpreter as being found near the Moyo river," Congo government spokesman Lambert Mende said. Investigations will continue to seek other missing Congolese colleagues, he said.

Michael Sharp of the United States and Zaida Catalan of Sweden, along with interpreter Betu Tshintela, driver Isaac Kabuayi and two motorbike drivers, went missing March 12 while looking into large-scale violence and alleged human rights violations by the Congolese army and local militia groups.

Congo's police inspector general, Charles Bisengimana, said the bodies were found Monday between the cities of Tshimbulu and Kananga, the provincial capital. The confirmation came a day after Sharp's father, John Sharp of Hesston, Kansas, wrote on his Facebook page that the bodies of two Caucasians had been found in shallow graves in the search area, saying there was a high probability the dead were his son and his son's colleague.

"All other words fail me," he wrote. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the world body would conduct an inquiry into what happened to the two experts. He said the cause of their deaths hadn't yet been determined.

"Michael and Zaida lost their lives seeking to understand the causes of conflict and insecurity in the DRC (Congo) in order to help bring peace to the country and its people," Guterres said in a statement, sending his condolences to their families.

Sharp and Catalan's disappearance is the first time U.N. experts have been reported missing in Congo, Human Rights Watch has said, and it is the first recorded disappearance of international workers in the Kasai provinces.

Parts of Congo, particularly the east, have experienced insecurity for decades, but violence in the Kasai provinces in central Congo represents a new expansion of tensions. The Kamwina Nsapu militia has been fighting security forces since last year, with the violence increasing after government troops killed the militia's leader in August. More than 400 people have been killed and more than 200,000 displaced since then, according to the U.N.

When asked earlier Tuesday whether the investigators' disappearance could be a turning point in the U.N. sending experts to the region, Guterres' deputy spokesman, Farhan Haq, said: "We hope that we could continue to send experts to do their necessary monitoring activities wherever they need to go. Of course, that needs to be undertaken with full respect and understanding of the security condition on the ground."

Associated Press writer Al-Hadji Maliro reported this story in Beni and AP writer Saleh Mwanamilongo reported from New York. AP writers Carley Petesch in Dakar, Senegal, and Jennifer Peltz at the United Nations contributed to this report.

DAKAR, Senegal (AP) — Congo's government must cooperate with United Nations efforts to locate experts who have been missing in the violent Kasai region for nearly two weeks, Human Rights Watch said Saturday.

Uruguayan peacekeepers and Tanzanian special forces who deployed to find the six people, including ones from the United States and Sweden, have faced a lack of cooperation, the rights group said. The U.N. mission in Congo said its movements have been restricted by security forces in Kananga, the provincial capital of Kasai Central.

Saturday's statement comes after the U.N. reported the discovery since January of more than two dozen mass graves in three Kasai provinces. And five videos have emerged in recent weeks that appear to show Congolese soldiers firing on militia members — a spike in deadly violence in recent months in the formerly quiet region.

"The missing U.N. team reflects a bigger picture of violence and abuse in the Kasai region," said Ida Sawyer, Central Africa director at Human Rights Watch. She called on the U.N. Human Rights Council to establish a commission of inquiry into abuses there.

Michael Sharp of the U.S., Zaida Catalan of Sweden, interpreter Betu Tshintela, driver Isaac Kabuayi and two motorbike drivers went missing March 12 near a remote village south of Kananga. They were looking into recent large-scale violence and alleged human rights violations by the Congolese army and local militia groups.

Their disappearance is the first time U.N. experts have been reported missing in Congo, Human Rights Watch said, and it is the first recorded disappearance of international workers in the Kasai provinces.

Parts of Congo, particularly the east, have experienced insecurity for more than two decades since the end of the Rwandan genocide led to the presence of local and foreign armed militias, all vying for control of mineral-rich land.

But the Kasai Central province where the U.N. experts were abducted represents a new expansion of tensions. Large-scale violence erupted in the Kasai region in August when security forces killed the leader of the Kamwina Nsapu militia. More than 400 people have been killed and more than 200,000 displaced since then, according to the U.N.

Human Rights Watch said it has received reports of scores of people killed in recent weeks. While the violence is linked to local power struggles, there are also clear ties to Congo's political crisis, according to Human Rights Watch. Anger has been growing in the country at long-delayed presidential elections, and dozens were killed in December amid protests as President Joseph Kabila stayed on past the end of his mandate. A deal reached between the ruling party and opposition to hold elections by the end of this year, without Kabila, remains fragile as the U.N. urges its implementation.

The rights group said security forces have been known to back local leaders seen as loyal to Kabila. Meanwhile, militia groups support those who are believed to support the opposition. Militia members have recruited large numbers of children, and using crude weapons have attacked security forces and some government buildings in Kasai, Kasai Central, Kasai Oriental, Sankuru, and Lomami provinces, Human Rights Watch said.

Tuesday, March 21, 2017

IDLIB - Al-Qaeda's former affiliate in Syria battled a range of rebel groups in the north of the country on Tuesday, as the government and opposition wrapped up new peace talks.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor, said the clashes began early in the day with an attack by former Al-Qaeda affiliate Fateh al-Sham Front on a base belonging to the Jaish al-Mujahideen faction.

Fateh al-Sham, previously known as Al-Nusra Front, is listed internationally as a "terrorist" group, despite formally renouncing its affiliation with Al-Qaeda in 2016.

But it has also been a key partner at times for rebel groups in Syria, and it leads a powerful alliance that controls all of Syria's Idlib province.

Despite the ties, tensions have occasionally flared between the jihadist group and other rebel forces, which accuse Fateh al-Sham of seeking hegemony.

The morning attack prompted further clashes which continued Tuesday afternoon along the border between Idlib province and northern Aleppo province, Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said.

Rockets fired during the fighting killed five members of a family, most of them children and women, he added.

The monitor said Fateh al-Sham had seized territory from rebel groups in Aleppo, while rebels advanced against the jihadist group in Idlib.

There was no official statement from either side on what sparked the clashes, which came after days of tension in Idlib and Aleppo provinces, including infighting between other rebel groups.

But Fateh al-Sham has been hit in recent weeks by a series of deadly air strikes, most believed to have been carried out by the US-led coalition fighting jihadists.

Abdel Rahman said the group appeared to believe that local rebels were providing coordinates for the air strikes.

The latest clashes come as Syria's government and rebel groups conclude fresh peace talks in the Kazakh capital Astana, building on a ceasefire in force since December 30.

Fateh al-Sham is excluded from the ceasefire and has rejected the negotiating process, creating fresh tensions with opposition groups.

The powerful Ahrar al-Sham faction, a close ally of Fateh al-Sham in Idlib, declined to take part in the talks, saying it wanted to avoid isolating the former Al-Qaeda affiliate.

But on Tuesday, its fighters were battling the group, and a leading Ahrar al-Sham official warned Fateh al-Sham that it was "at a crossroads".

"It either completely joins the revolution or it is a new Daesh," said Labib al-Nahhas on Twitter, using an Arabic acronym for IS.

Syria's civil war has killed more than 310,000 people and displaced millions from their homes since it started in March 2011 with the brutal repression of anti-government protests.

ALEPPO, Syria (AP) — The street looks as if it was hit by an earthquake and the bombed-out building in a former rebel-held northeastern neighborhood of Aleppo is deserted — except for the second-floor apartment where Abdul-Hamid Khatib and his family are staying.

There is no electricity or running water. The apartment windows are covered with nylon sheets and a hole caused by a shell in the sitting room wall is closed with a piece of metal, pierced by the exhaust pipe for the wood-burning heater.

Khatib and his family are the only occupants of the six-story building and they keep its main gate locked with a metal chain, fearing looters. At night, they fumble around the two-bedroom apartment with candles.

But the family has nowhere else to go. The 56-year-old blacksmith had been jobless for months and could not afford to continue paying rent. He was worried their apartment in Aleppo's Ansari neighborhood would be completely looted if they stayed away.

"A few days ago a man who brought some stuff over told me, 'Is it possible that you live here?' I said where can we go? At least this is our house and no one will ask us to leave," said Hasnaa, Khatib's wife.

Life and war have been very unkind to the Khatib family. The eldest son Mohammed was killed in the bombardment of east Aleppo in 2013 and their granddaughter Hasnaa, 4, was killed a year later by a bullet as she played on the balcony of her parents' apartment. Their son Mahmoud died at work of severe burns while welding a metal container filled with gas.

Since rebels fighting to topple President Bashar Assad stormed east Aleppo in July 2012, the family had to leave the house twice to move to safer areas, before returning back home. But in August 2016, when government forces intensified their offensive on east Aleppo, an airstrike near their home forced them to flee for the third time.

"It was so dangerous and our kids were terrified so we could not tolerate it anymore. We used to tell the gunmen to move away from here but they would not listen to us," Abdul-Hamid said. In late December, government forces and their allies took control of east Aleppo, bringing the whole city under state control in the biggest victory for Assad since the country's conflict began in March 2011.

The Khatib family — like many of east Aleppo's residents — were taken to shelters in the village of Jibrin, just south of Aleppo, where they spent a week before returning to their hometown during the first week of January.

Having little money left to rent an apartment, they returned to their abandoned home in Ansari and fixed it as much as possible. They found many of their belongings looted including the refrigerator, stove, a microwave and seven gas cylinders. When asked who was behind the looting, Khatib blamed both rebels and pro-government gunmen.

The couple now lives in the apartment with their daughter Rasha, daughter-in-law and two grandchildren, Abdul-Hamid and Rimas. Their apartment appears in relatively good shape compared with nearby housing units. The buildings on either side of theirs are uninhabitable. Most buildings in their area are either a pile of metal and stones, or so damaged they're no longer suitable to live in. Their home now attracts attention from curious passersby as it's the only apartment on the street with washed laundry hanging from the balcony and wood smoke coming from the heater.

Thousands of other families from east Aleppo have returned to their homes because they have nowhere else to go. Others come in every day to look at their homes and take whatever they can carry with them — especially those in heavily damaged buildings. One neighboring family came to check on their home about 50 meters away and found it could collapse at any moment.

Despite everything, Abdul-Hamid Khatib is optimistic that the situation in his city can only get better. But his wife, Hasnaa, wishes they had fled Syria and joined the nearly four million refugees who settled in neighboring countries, mostly Lebanon and Turkey.

"I feel life was so unjust to me. Although I am alive, I feel as if I am dead," she said, sitting on a plastic chair in her living room." I wish we left at the beginning of the crisis, even if we had to stay in the street."

As many as 177,568 babies have been born to Syrian refugees in Turkey over almost six years.

Sources in the Turkish health ministry told Anadolu news agency that about three million Syrians who are subject to the law of temporary protection benefit from health services free of charge across the country’s public hospitals.

According to the same sources, Turkey has established 65 specialized health centers to provide medical services for Syrian refugees while the health ministry will establish an additional 500 centers across the country.

During the period from April 2011 till the end of September last year, Turkish hospitals and health centers have treated millions of cases for the almost three million Syrian refugees living on Turkish soil.

DEIR EZZOR - As the Islamic State group closes in on Syria's Deir Ezzor, residents said they are terrified of falling victim to the mass killings for which the jihadists have become infamous.

Besieged by IS since early 2015, the government-held third of Deir Ezzor city is home to an estimated 100,000 people.

Since Saturday, IS has steadily advanced in a fresh assault on the city, sparking fears among residents of widespread atrocities.

"Civilians in the city are terrified and anxious, afraid that IS will enter the city since they accuse us of being 'regime thugs'," said Abu Nour, 51.

He spoke by phone from inside the city, roughly one kilometer (less than one mile) from approaching IS forces.

Deir Ezzor sits in the oil-rich eastern province of the same name, most of which is controlled by IS.

Abu Nour said that residents were haunted by previous abductions and mass executions carried out by IS in the broader province.

"The way they killed them is stuck in people's minds here," he said.

IS is notorious for using particularly gruesome methods to kill military rivals and civilians alike, including beheading, lighting them on fire, or launching rockets at them from just meters (feet) away.

As the group advanced on ancient city Palmyra in 2015, it killed dozens of civilians, accusing them of being regime loyalists, then staged mass executions of government troops in the city's theater.

According to one activist group, IS has already begun executing Syrian soldiers it took captive during the clashes in Deir Ezzor.

IS executed 10 soldiers "by driving over them with tanks", said Omar Abu Leila, an activist from Deir Ezzor 24, which publishes news on the city.

"If IS seizes regime-held neighborhoods, it could carry out massacres. This is a huge source of concern for us," he said.

- 'Hunger will ravage us' -

In its push for Deir Ezzor, the jihadist group has launched salvos of rockets on the neighborhoods it besieged.

"Shells have rained down on us for five days," Umm Inas, another resident, said by phone.

"There's very little movement in the street because people are afraid of these shells, which spare no one," the 45-year-old said.

She warned the humanitarian situation was getting increasingly dire, after the World Food Program said on Tuesday it could no longer carry out air drops over the city because of the fighting.

"If the situation continues like this, hunger will ravage us. The air drops were our only lifeline," Umm Inas said.

The WFP has been dropping humanitarian aid into Deir Ezzor since April 2016, and the government-held area is the only place in Syria where the agency has permission for the drops.

In the past, government and Russian warplanes have also delivered desperately needed humanitarian aid to the city via air drops.

A medical source in the city said more than 100 civilians had been wounded in the recent fighting, and some were taken north to the Kurdish-majority city of Qamishli.

"Some intractable cases were flown to Qamishli because they need special treatment that isn't available in Deir Ezzor," the source said.

DAMASCUS - Key Syrian rebel group Ahrar al-Sham said on Wednesday it will not take part in peace talks between the regime and opposition factions in the Kazakh capital next week.

The group decided not to participate in the negotiations in Astana that start on Monday due to "the lack of implementation of the ceasefire" in force since December 30 and ongoing Russian air strikes over Syria, it said in a statement.

Ahrar al-Sham was among rebel groups that signed the ceasefire deal brokered by regime supporter Russia and rebel backer Turkey last month.

The truce has largely held across Syria although fighting has persisted in some areas, allowing Russia, Turkey and regime supporter Iran to organize the peace talks in Astana.

Ahrar al-Sham said "the regime's offensive against our people in Wadi Barada", an area 15 kilometers (10 miles) northwest of Damascus that is the capital's main source of water, was among the reasons it would not attend the talks.

Assad's forces have pressed an assault to retake the area from rebels after mains supplies were cut last month, leaving 5.5 million people in Damascus and its suburbs without water.

Ahrar al-Sham said however that it was giving its support to other rebel groups represented at the Astana talks.

Mohammad Alloush, a prominent figure of the Jaish al-Islam (Army of Islam) faction, will in Astana head a "military delegation" of around eight people, backed by nine legal and political advisers from the High Negotiations Committee umbrella group.

Daesh laid siege to a military airport which is under the control of Syrian regime forces in the city of Deir ez-Zor yesterday, as forces loyal to President Bashar Al-Assad struggle to maintain any effective presence in the eastern Syrian city.

After days of fierce fighting, Daesh fighters managed to cut off all supply routes and divide the territories held by the Assad regime while taking control of important sites in the vicinity of the airbase.

Deir ez-Zor, which is the largest city in the eastern part of Syria,has long been under siege by Daesh.

However, the Syrian army forces were in control of certain neighborhoods, including the city’s airport. For long periods residents of Deir ez-Zor and the servicemen needed air drops for food and essential supplies.

The military airbase has been described as a “small island” surrounded by the territories under Daesh control. Since opposition forces took control of the region in 2014, militants made countless attempts to take control and besiege the airbase but had failed to take full control.

Safa news agency reported a military official who commented on the latest siege of the military airport saying that “this attack was the fiercest onslaught initiated by [Daesh] on the airport and the region.”

Daesh has now successfully cut through the only land supply route between the base and Deir ez-Zor.

If Daesh manages to control the airbase and Deir ez-Zor,it will be seen as a bigger blow to the regime than its defeat in Palmyra which, unlike Deir ez-Zor did not have an airbase with Syrian forces to defend it.

ROME (AP) — Italy's president, whose brother was murdered by Cosa Nostra, traveled on Sunday to an organized crime stronghold to honor hundreds of Italians slain by the country's crime clans over the past decades.

President Sergio Mattarella also praised the judges, prosecutors, police officers, union leaders, businessmen and politicians who courageously combatted or denounced organized crime. During the ceremony in Locri, a Calabrian town that is a long-time base of the 'ndrangheta crime syndicate, the names of innocent victims — some caught in the crossfire of turf wars — were read aloud. Among the names was that of the president's brother, Piersanti Mattarella, the Sicilian governor assassinated in Palermo in 1980.

The event anticipated Italy's annual remembrance day, occurring later this week, for victims of organized crime. Near Naples, hundreds of scouts filled a church in the mobster-infested town of Casal di Principe to pay tribute to a priest, Giuseppe Diana, who denounced the local Caselesi crime clan of the Camorra syndicate. Diana was shot to death in the church sacristy in 1994.

Mattarella lamented the "Mafia is still strong" and controls or tries to infiltrate much of Italy's economy. He denounced "gray areas, those of complicity," which mobsters exploit, a reference to corruptible politicians and public administrators who, investigations have found, help mafiosi win lucrative contracts in construction and social services, such as hospitals.

While rooted for generations in Italy's underdeveloped south, the 'ndrangheta, Camorra and other syndicates have also infiltrated businesses in affluent northern Italy. Mobsters have been laundering illicit profits in popular restaurants and cafes in Rome and elsewhere. Legitimate manufacturing businesses in the north turned to the Camorra to illegally dispose of toxic waste to save money and avoid bureaucracy.

Still, progress has come. Young people in Sicily inspired many shopkeepers and industrialists there to stop paying Cosa Nostra "protection" money. Locri Bishop Francesco Oliva insisted Calabria wants to break with a past "stained by the blood of crime feuds that sowed death and desperation."

DUBLIN (AP) — Martin McGuinness, the Irish Republican Army commander who led his underground, paramilitary movement toward reconciliation with Britain, and was Northern Ireland's deputy first minister for a decade in a power-sharing government, has died, his Sinn Fein party announced Tuesday on Twitter. He was 66.

The party said he died after a short illness. He suffered from amyloidosis, a rare disease with a strain specific to Ireland's northwest. The chemotherapy required to combat the formation of organ-choking protein deposits quickly sapped him of strength and forced him to start missing government appointments.

"Throughout his life Martin showed great determination, dignity and humility and it was no different during his short illness," Sinn Fein's President Gerry Adams said. "He was a passionate republican who worked tirelessly for peace and reconciliation and for the re-unification of his country. But above all he loved his family and the people of Derry and he was immensely proud of both.

Irish President Michael D. Higgins said: "The world of politics and the people across this island will miss the leadership he gave, shown most clearly during the difficult times of the peace process, and his commitment to the values of genuine democracy that he demonstrated in the development of the institutions in Northern Ireland.

McGuinness' transformation as peacemaker was all the more remarkable because, as a senior IRA commander during the years of gravest Catholic-Protestant violence, he insisted that Northern Ireland must be forced out of the United Kingdom against the wishes of Protestants.

Even after the Sinn Fein party — the IRA's legal, public face — started to run for elections in the 1980s, McGuinness insisted as Sinn Fein deputy leader that "armed struggle" remained essential. "We don't believe that winning elections and any amount of votes will bring freedom in Ireland," he told a BBC documentary team in 1986. "At the end of the day, it will be the cutting edge of the IRA that will bring freedom."

Yet within a few years of making that stubborn vow, McGuinness was exploring the opposite option in covert contacts with British intelligence that led eventually to a truce, inter-party talks and the installation of the IRA icon in the heart of Northern Ireland's government.

Irish Times columnist Fintan O'Toole argued in January 2017 that McGuinness had been "a mass killer — during his period of membership and leadership the IRA killed 1,781 people, including 644 civilians — whose personal amiability has been essential to the peace process. If he were not a ruthless and unrepentant exponent of violence, he would never have become such a key figure in bringing violence to an end."

Unlike his close Adams, McGuinness never hid the fact that he had been a commander of the IRA — classed as a terrorist organization by the British, Irish and U.S. governments. Nor could he. Born May 23, 1950, he joined the breakaway Provisional IRA faction in his native Londonderry — simply Derry to Irish nationalists — after dropping out of high school and working as an apprentice butcher in the late 1960s. At the time, the Catholic civil rights movement faced increasing conflict with the province's Protestant government and police.

He rose to become Derry's deputy IRA commander by age 21 as "Provo" bombs systematically wrecked the city center. Soldiers found it impossible to pass IRA road barricades erected in McGuinness' nearby Bogside power base.

McGuinness appeared unmasked at early Provisional IRA press conferences. The BBC filmed him walking through the Bogside discussing how the IRA command structure worked and stressing his concern to minimize civilian casualties, an early sign of public relations savvy.

In 1972, Northern Ireland's bloodiest year, McGuinness joined Adams in a six-man IRA delegation flown by the British government to London for secret face-to-face negotiations during a brief truce. Those talks got nowhere and McGuinness went back on the run until his arrest on New Year's Eve in the Republic of Ireland near a car loaded with 250 pounds (110 kilograms) of explosives and 4,750 rounds of ammunition.

During one of his two Dublin trials for IRA membership, McGuinness declared from the dock he was "a member of the Derry Brigade of the IRA and I'm very, very proud of it." Historians and security analysts agree that McGuinness was promoted to the IRA's ruling army council following his November 1974 parole from prison and would have overseen many of the group's most spectacular and divisive attacks. These included bomb attacks on London tourist spots and the use of "human bombs" — civilian employees like cooks and cleaners at British security installations — who were forced to drive car bombs to their places of work and were detonated by remote control before they could raise the alarm.

His central role in the IRA command was underscored when Britain in 1990 opened secret dialogue with the underground group in hopes of securing a cease-fire. An MI6 agent codenamed "The Mountain Climber" met McGuinness several times as part of wider diplomatic efforts that delivered a 1994 IRA truce and, ultimately, multi-party negotiations on Northern Ireland's future and the U.S.-brokered Good Friday peace accord of 1998.

Northern Ireland's first power-sharing government, formed in 1999, was led by moderates and afforded only minor roles for Sinn Fein and the most uncompromising Protestant party, Paisley's Democratic Unionists. When Sinn Fein nominated McGuinness to be education minister, many Protestant lawmakers recoiled and insisted they would never accept what one called "an IRA godfather" overseeing their children's education.

That first coalition collapsed under the twin weight of Paisley-led obstruction and the IRA's refusal to disarm as the Good Friday pact intended. McGuinness served as the lead liaison with disarmament officials.

After election results vaulted the Democratic Unionists and Sinn Fein to the top of their communities for the first time, pressure mounted on the IRA to surrender its stockpiled arsenal. This happened in 2005, paving the way for Paisley to bury the hatchet with the group he called "the Sinners."

No observer could have foreseen what happened next: a genuine friendship between First Minister Paisley and Deputy First Minister McGuinness. Belfast wits dubbed them "The Chuckle Brothers" because of their public warmth, an image that quickly eroded Protestant support for Paisley and forced him out as Democratic Unionist chief within the year.

McGuinness maintained more businesslike relations with Paisley's frosty successor, Peter Robinson. Together they met Queen Elizabeth II for a historic 2012 handshake in Belfast and were guests of honor at Windsor Castle two years later. All the while, McGuinness expressed newfound support for the police as they faced attacks from IRA splinter groups — a U-turn that exposed McGuinness and his relatives to death threats in their Derry home.

"Over the last 10 years I have worked with DUP leaders and reached out to unionists on the basis of equality, respect and reconciliation," a frail, weak-voiced McGuinness said as he resigned as deputy first minister. "Today is the right time to call a halt to the DUP's arrogance."

McGuinness is survived by his wife, Bernadette, two daughters and two sons.

HERCEGSZANTO, Hungary (AP) — Hungary's defense minister inaugurated a small military base on Monday on the country's southern border for soldiers patrolling to prevent the entry of migrants. Defense Minister Istvan Simicsko said that base built with the assistance of Austrian soldiers would provide "worthy" conditions for the 150 troops to be stationed there.

"The defense of the border ... so hundreds of thousands won't march across the country, deserves total respect," Simicsko told the soldiers. "Our most important common interest is the protection of the Hungarian citizens, our family members and civilians."

The Hercegszanto complex, about 220 kilometers (140 miles) south of Budapest, was constructed from 90 containers and is that last of four bases built since January for soldiers patrolling the Serbian border in Bacs-Kiskun county.

The bases will significantly cut soldiers' commute to the border zone for the patrols carried out jointly with police "border hunters," Simicsko said. Prime Minister Viktor Orban said last week that a new fence being built on the Serbian border equipped with surveillance tools would withstand even a major surge of migrants, which Hungary is anticipating this year partly because of the deteriorating deal between the European Union and Turkey to prevent migrants from reaching Greece.

"This will be a fence that will be able to block the path of even the largest crowds arriving from Turkey," Orban said on Hungarian state radio. "So in Austria and Germany people can sleep soundly, because Hungarians will be protecting Europe's external borders."

Hungary first built fences on the borders with Serbian and Croatia in late 2015, when nearly 400,000 people traveled through the country on their way to Germany and other destinations in Western Europe.

Simicsko said that he had no information about any abuses of migrants who are caught in Hungary and summarily deported across the fence to Serbia. Several aid groups, including Doctors Without Borders, have denounced numerous cases of migrants returning to Serbia from Hungary with dog bites and injuries from reported beatings by border patrols.

Recent changes to Hungary's asylum policy, allowing the detention of all migrants, including children over 14, in border container camps, have also been the target of sturdy criticism by U.N. agencies and human rights advocates.

BERLIN (AP) — Thousands of people have joined rallies across Germany and other European countries to show their support for the idea of a united Europe. The weekly protests began last year as an attempt to counter growing nationalist sentiment on the continent, often expressed in opposition to the European Union.

Protesters in Berlin, Frankfurt, Cologne and dozens of other locations danced, sang and waved the EU flag — 12 stars on a blue background — during the rallies Sunday. The protests are organized on social media by a group calling itself Pulse of Europe.

PARIS (AP) — The two front-runners for the French presidency clashed spectacularly in the campaign's first televised debate between leading candidates Monday night. All five candidates landed punches during vigorous discussion on the big issues for France: jobs, terrorism, immigration, Europe.

But the faceoff between independent centrist Emmanuel Macron and far-right populist Marine Le Pen provided political theater, even moments of high drama in pitting two opposing visions of France. Macron's performance, in particular, was being closely watched. One of the big surprises of the election has been the success of the former economics minister's new-look campaign, positioning himself as a centrist alternative to France's traditional left-right politics.

But Le Pen, the anti-immigration, anti-European Union leader of the National Front, was looking for opportunities to pounce. With polls suggesting that she and Macron could be direct rivals in the decisive May 7 runoff of the two-round election, both sought to score points against each other.

As Macron was discussing foreign policy, Le Pen portrayed him as wishy-washy, muttering: "It's empty, completely empty." "We don't know what you want," she said. Macron proved during the three-hour evening debate that overran and spilled past midnight that he can defend himself. With limited experience of public office, he sought to portray himself as presidential and hard to push around.

Some of the most heated exchanges centered on the place of religion in France and the separation of church and state. Macron reacted vigorously when Le Pen accused him of being in favor of Muslim swimwear — essentially suggesting that her rival isn't really committed to France's secular values and policies.

"I don't need a ventriloquist," he retorted. "When I have something to say, I say it clearly." He, in turn, accused Le Pen of using Islam to divide the French. Le Pen wants all visible religious symbols worn by people, including Muslim headscarves and Jewish kippahs, banned from public.

"The trap you are falling into, Madame Le Pen, with your provocations is to divide society," Macron said. Macron also used humor to defuse Le Pen's attacks. After a thinly veiled dig from Le Pen suggesting that the former banker would be beholden to financial lobbies if elected, Macron told her: "You'd be bored without me."

While they were feisty, conservative candidate Francois Fillon was noticeably and unusually restrained. Once considered a leading contender to move into the presidency's Elysee Palace, Fillon's campaign has been badly hurt by accusations that his wife and children were paid with public money for jobs they allegedly did not do, which he denies. The ex-prime minister appeared weary and at times absent during the debate.

"I may have made mistakes. I have defects. Who doesn't? But I have experience," Fillon said. Socialist candidate Benoit Hamon and far-left leader Jean-Luc Melenchon, both looking to boost their poll numbers, were the first to take swipes at Le Pen.

Hamon described Le Pen's attitude as "sickening" after she spoke of French schools as "a daily nightmare," so dangerous that pupils attend with "fear in their stomachs." Melenchon interrupted Le Pen as she was calling for boosted French-language teaching.

"How do you learn French, dear madam? By speaking it!" he said. Of the 11 candidates in the election, only the five who are expected to be the largest vote-getters in the first round were included in the debate.

The first-round vote is set for April 23; the top two candidates go to the May 7 runoff.

PARIS (AP) — The five leading candidates for France's presidential election are holding their first debate Monday, with centrist Emmanuel Macron and far-right leader Marine Le Pen leading polls, and jobs and security among voters' top concerns.

The televised evening debate comes after France was shaken by a weekend attack on soldiers at Paris' Orly airport, a reminder of security challenges the new president will face. The list of 11 candidates was finalized Saturday. The first-round vote is set for April 23; the top two candidates go to a runoff May 7.

Macron and Le Pen will be joined at the debate by conservative Francois Fillon, Socialist Benoit Hamon and far-left leader Jean-Luc Melenchon. The five are expected to be the largest vote-getters in the first round.

LONDON (AP) — Britain will begin divorce proceedings from the European Union on March 29, starting the clock on two years of intense political and economic negotiations that will fundamentally change both the nation and its European neighbors.

Britain's ambassador to the EU, Tim Barrow, informed European Council President Donald Tusk of the exact start date on Monday morning. "We are on the threshold of the most important negotiation for this country for a generation," Brexit Secretary David Davis said. "The government is clear in its aims: a deal that works for every nation and region of the U.K. and indeed for all of Europe - a new, positive partnership between the U.K. and our friends and allies in the European Union."

The trigger for all this tumult is the innocuous-sounding Article 50 of the EU's Lisbon Treaty, a never-before-used mechanism for withdrawing from the bloc. British Prime Minister Theresa May, under the Article, will notify Tusk of her nation's intentions to leave the 28-nation bloc.

The article stipulates that the two sides will have until March 2019 to agree on a divorce settlement and — if possible — establish a new relationship between Britain, the world's No. 5 economy, and the EU, a vast single market containing 500 million people.

The European Commission — the bloc's legislative arm — said it stood ready to help launch the negotiations. "Everything is ready on this side," commission spokesman Margaritis Schinas said. Leaders of the 27 other EU nations will meet by the month of May to finalize their negotiating guidelines.

May's 10 Downing Street office said the prime minister will make a statement in the House of Commons on the day Article 50 is triggered. Britons voted in a June referendum to leave the EU after more than 40 years of membership. But May was not able to trigger the talks until last week, when the British Parliament approved a bill authorizing the start of Brexit negotiations.

But like any divorce, things may not go to plan. The letter May sends next week will plunge Britain into a period of intense uncertainty. The country doesn't know what its future relationship with the bloc will look like — whether its businesses will freely be able to trade with the rest of Europe, its students can study abroad or its pensioners will be allowed to retire easily in other EU states. Those things have become part of life in the U.K. since it joined what was then called the European Economic Community in 1973.

It's also not clear what rights the estimated 3 million EU citizens already working and living in Britain will retain. And it's not even certain that the United Kingdom — made up of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland — will survive the EU exit intact.

Scotland's nationalist first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, is seeking a referendum on independence within two years. In the same Brexit vote in which most Britons chose to leave the EU, Scottish voters mostly wanted to stay. Sturgeon says Scotland mustn't be "taken down a path that we do not want to go down without a choice."

May has rejected that suggestion, saying "now is not the time" for another referendum on Scottish independence. Pro-EU Labour Party Lawmaker Pat McFadden said Monday it is now up to May to deliver the good deal for Britain that she has promised.

"The phony period is nearly over, and the real work of negotiations are about to begin," McFadden said. Conflicts are likely to arise soon. The EU wants Britain to pay a hefty divorce bill — estimates have ranged up to 60 billion euros ($64 billion) — to cover pension liabilities for EU staff and other commitments the U.K. has agreed to.

British negotiators are sure to quibble over the size of that tab. Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said a "vast" bill is unreasonable, and suggested that May should follow the "illustrious precedent" of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who successfully sought a rebate from the bloc in 1984.

Negotiations will also soon hit a fundamental topic: Britain wants "frictionless" free trade, but says it will restore controls over immigration, ending the right of EU citizens to live and work in Britain. The EU, however, says Britain can't have full access to the single market if it doesn't accept the free movement of its people, one of the bloc's key principles.

May has suggested that if talks stall she could walk away, saying that "no deal for Britain is better than a bad deal for Britain." That prospect alarms many British businesses. If Britain crashed out of the EU without a trade deal it would fall back onto World Trade Organization rules, leading to tariffs and other barriers to trade.

Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee has warned that the British government has not done enough to prepare for the "real prospect" that talks with the EU may break down, ending in no deal and "mutually assured damage" to both Britain and the EU.

Even if the talks go well, EU leaders say there is little chance that a final agreement on relations between the two parties will be reached by 2019. Some experts say the process could take a decade.

TOKYO (AP) — North Korea has conducted a ground test of a new type of high-thrust rocket engine that leader Kim Jong Un is calling a revolutionary breakthrough for the country's space program, the North's state media said Sunday.

Kim attended Saturday's test at the Sohae launch site, according to the Korean Central News Agency, which said the test was intended to confirm the "new type" of engine's thrust power and gauge the reliability of its control system and structural safety.

Kim called the test "a great event of historic significance" for the country's indigenous rocket industry, the KCNA report said. He also said the "whole world will soon witness what eventful significance the great victory won today carries" and claimed the test marks what will be known as the "March 18 revolution" in the development of the country's rocket industry.

The report indicated that the engine is to be used for North Korea's space and satellite-launching program. North Korea is banned by the United Nations from conducting long-range missile tests, but it claims its satellite program is for peaceful use, a claim many in the U.S. and elsewhere believe is questionable.

North Korean officials have said that under a five-year plan, they intend to launch more Earth observation satellites and what would be the country's first geostationary communications satellite — which would be a major technological advance.

Getting that kind of satellite into place would likely require a more powerful engine than its previous ones. The North also claims it is trying to build a viable space program that would include a moon launch within the next 10 years.

The test was conducted as U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was in China on a swing through Asia that has been closely focused on concerns over how to deal with Pyongyang's nuclear and missile programs.

It's hard to know whether this test was deliberately timed to coincide with Tillerson's visit, but Pyongyang has been highly critical of ongoing U.S.-South Korea wargames just south of the Demilitarized Zone and often conducts some sort of high-profile operation of its own in protest.

Earlier this month, it fired off four ballistic missiles into the Sea of Japan, reportedly reaching within 200 kilometers (120 miles) of Japan's shoreline. Japan, which was Tillerson's first stop before traveling to South Korea and China, hosts tens of thousands of U.S. troops.

While building ever better long-range missiles and smaller nuclear warheads to pair with them, North Korea has marked a number of successes in its space program. It launched its latest satellite — the Kwangmyongsong 4, or Brilliant Star 4 — into orbit on Feb. 7 last year, just one month after conducting what it claims was its first hydrogen-bomb test.

It put its first satellite in orbit in 2012, a feat few other countries have achieved. In 2013, rival South Korea launched a satellite into space from its own soil for the first time, though it needed Russian help to build the rocket's first stage.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korean politicians want to ensure that the country never again sees a leader like Park Geun-hye, who was booted from office over an explosive corruption scandal. But they are far apart on whether doing so would require rewriting the country's 3-decade-old constitution, a treasured symbol of the bloody transition from dictatorship to democracy.

Several parties, including conservatives scrambling to distance themselves from Park, say South Koreans should vote in a new constitution in addition to a new president in early May. They say the shocking downfall of Park, who may face criminal charges over extortion and bribery, shows that the constitution places too much power that is easily abused and often goes unchecked into the hands of the president.

Their proposal for a new constitution is based on power-sharing, where the president is limited to handling foreign affairs and national security and leaves domestic affairs to a prime minister picked by parliament.

However, the party of liberal Moon Jae-in, who opinion polls show as the clear favorite to become South Korea's next leader, opposes a quick constitutional revision and accuses rival parties of plotting a short-cut to power.

The discussions about rewriting the constitution are ironic in that they come after a historic effort to protect it. Lawmakers voted to impeach Park in December on grounds that she "gravely violated" the constitution written in 1987, after the government of military strongman Chun Doo-hwan caved in to months of massive protests and accepted demands for presidential elections.

The debate also raises a fundamental question for South Koreans as they mull a new political landscape following Park's demise: Was it a flawed, imperious presidential system that allowed Park to abuse her powers, or a culture that long treated elected heads of states like kings?

The future of the constitution has instantly emerged as a major political topic after the Constitutional Court removed Park on Friday and triggered a two-month presidential race. Kweon Seong Dong, a lawmaker from the conservative Bareun party and chief prosecutor in Park's impeachment trial, touted his party's line immediately after the ruling.

"We need a constitutional revision based on power-sharing," Kweon said. "Absolute power absolutely corrupts." Critics refuse to see the court's decision to uphold Park's impeachment as proof that the constitution works as it is. They include none other than one of the court's justices, Ahn Changho.

In a supplementary opinion written into Park's ruling, Ahn found the constitution responsible for an "imperial presidency" that breeds "deplorable political customs," such as abuse of power and corruptive ties with the country's biggest companies, which have a tradition of bribing politicians for business favors.

Ahn said the president simply has too much power over the appointment of government officials, making of laws and policies, budget planning and other decisions, which lawmakers find difficult to check for most of the single five-year term.

"Our country has a winner-takes-it-all representative system where those who win an election, even by just one vote, obtain imperial political power and those who don't get swept to the side and are neglected," Ahn wrote.

A constitutional change would need the support of two-thirds of the 300-seat parliament and then pass a national referendum. Moon, who's likely to be the presidential candidate of the Democratic Party, the largest in parliament, says he is open to discussions about constitutional revision, but opposes any changes that take place before or simultaneously with the upcoming presidential election.

He says that two months is too short to properly rewrite the constitution, which not only lays out fundamental principles for power and governance, but also defines the basic rights of citizens. Besides proposing power-sharing between the president and prime minister, the parties backing a constitutional overhaul also call for the next president's term to be reduced to three years so that a presidential vote can coincide with a parliamentary election in 2020. By then, the parties want a president to be able to serve two four-year terms or a six-year single term.

Some experts question whether South Korea's Constitution is really at fault for power-drunk presidents. On paper, it seems that the South Korean president domestically has significantly less power than, say, the president of the United States. The South Korean president can't issue executive orders without the consent of lawmakers. The president does appoint a large number of government officials, but needs lawmakers' approval when seating the prime minister, Seoul's No. 2 job.

It's hard to say a system for checks and balances isn't there when lawmakers and a court just combined to kick out a sitting president. This wasn't the first time South Korean lawmakers tried to remove a president either, although the Constitutional Court reinstated late President Roh Moo-hyun in 2004.

Perhaps, Park's saga is less of a reflection of the country's constitution than of a rigidly hierarchical culture, where people find it extremely difficult to disobey instructions from above, even when they are inappropriate or unlawful.

The scandal has inspired Democratic Party lawmaker Ki Dong-min to propose a law he says is aimed at allowing government workers to refuse "unjust" orders from their bosses. But when a society needs a special law so that people could avoid breaking other laws, then probably laws aren't what the problem is about.

"South Korea's imperial president wasn't created by laws, but by custom and culture," Won-Ho Park, a Seoul National University politics professor, wrote in a newspaper column. "The secret to why our president can influence so many things, even the appointment of public university presidents or the personnel decisions of private companies, could perhaps be found in our culture that calls presidential authority as the 'great power' and presidential contenders 'hidden dragons,'" he said.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — A day after a court removed her from power over a corruption scandal, ousted South Korean President Park Geun-hye maintained her silence on Saturday as her opponents and supporters divided the capital's streets with massive rallies that showed a nation deeply split over its future.

Park has been unseen and unheard from since the Constitutional Court's ruling on Friday, which ended a power struggle that had consumed the nation for months. Park, whose fate was left in the court's hands after her parliamentary impeachment in December, has yet to vacate the presidential Blue House, with her aides saying they need more time to prepare for her return to her private home in Seoul.

Carrying flags and candles and cheering jubilantly, tens of thousands of people occupied a boulevard in downtown Seoul to celebrate Park's ouster. Meanwhile, in a nearby grass square, a large crowd of Park's supporters glumly waved national flags near a stage where organizers, wearing red caps and military uniforms, vowed to resist what they called a "political assassination."

Police had braced for violence between the two crowds after three people died and dozens were injured in clashes between police and Park's supporters after the ruling on Friday. Nearly 20,000 police officers were deployed on Saturday to monitor the protesters, who were also separated by tight perimeters created by hundreds of police buses.

The anti-Park protesters shouted "The candles have won!" and "Arrest Park Geun-hye!" as they began marching toward the Blue House. The protesters, who held candles during their massive evening demonstrations in recent months, loosely call themselves the Candle Force.

The court's decision capped a stunning fall for the country's first female leader. Park rode a wave of lingering conservative nostalgia for her late dictator father to victory in 2012, only to see her presidency crumble as millions of furious protesters filled the nation's streets.

While the ruling might have irrevocably derailed Park's political career, analysts saw defiance in her silence, saying that Park was perhaps hoping to use the growing anger of her followers to rebuild support.

"By being quiet, she's making it loud and clear that she won't accept the court's ruling," said Yul Shin, a professor at Seoul's Myongji University. "Nobody knows when she will leave the Blue House, but maybe she wanted to see how large the crowd was tonight at the pro-Park rally."

The ruling allows possible criminal proceedings against the 65-year-old Park — prosecutors have already named her a criminal suspect — and makes her South Korea's first democratically elected leader to be removed from office since democracy replaced dictatorship in the late 1980s.

It also deepens South Korea's political and security uncertainty as it faces existential threats from North Korea, reported economic retaliation from a China furious about Seoul's cooperation with the U.S. on an anti-missile system, and questions in Seoul about the Trump administration's commitment to the U.S.-South Korea security alliance.

South Korea must hold an election within two months to choose Park's successor. Liberal Moon Jae-in, who lost to Park in the 2012 election, currently enjoys a comfortable lead in opinion polls. Kim Yong-deok, the chief of the National Election Commission, said Saturday that the election would be managed "accurately and perfectly" and urged the public to participate in a vote that would "determine the fate of the Republic of Korea," referring to South Korea's formal name.

The Constitutional Court accused Park of colluding with longtime confidante Choi Soon-sil to extort tens of millions of dollars from businesses and letting Choi, a private citizen, meddle in state affairs and receive and look at documents with state secrets. Those allegations were previously made by prosecutors, but Park has refused to undergo any questioning, citing a law that gives a sitting leader immunity from prosecution.

It is not clear when prosecutors will try to interview her. Prosecutors have arrested and indicted a slew of high-profile figures over the scandal, including Choi and Samsung's de facto chief, Lee Jae-yong.

Park's lawyer, Seo Seok-gu, who had previously compared her impeachment to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, called the verdict a "tragic decision" made under popular pressure and questioned the fairness of what he called a "kangaroo court."

Some of Park's supporters reacted with anger after the ruling, shouting and hitting police officers and reporters with plastic flag poles and steel ladders and climbing on police buses. Police and hospital officials said three people died while protesting Park's removal, including a man in his 70s who died early Saturday after collapsing near the court.

TOKYO (AP) — The foreign and defense ministers from Japan and Russia met in Tokyo on Monday for the first "two-plus-two" talks since Russia's annexation of Ukraine. The one-day meeting comes as the sides work to end a decades-long territorial dispute that is blocking them from forging a peace treaty. At the same time, Japan, Russia, China and other countries are mulling how best to deal with North Korea's launches of missiles and its nuclear program.

Plans by the U.S. and its ally South Korea to deploy a state-of-the-art missile defense system known as THAAD, meanwhile, have antagonized Beijing and Russia. Officials on both sides said the talks would largely focus on regional security.

"We will offer our view of the deployment of the U.S. missile defense system in the Pacific region," a Russian Foreign Ministry statement said. It said joint efforts in fighting terrorism and drug trafficking were also on the agenda.

Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida began talks with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, while Japanese Defense Minister Tomomi Inada will sit down for talks with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu. The four ministers will also hold joint talks on international and bilateral issues.

Japan and Russia last held "two-plus-two" talks in November 2013. Meetings were shelved after that due to the crisis in Ukraine, as Japan joined sanctions against Moscow. The Tokyo talks are not expected to lead to a breakthrough on conflicting claims to islands north of Hokkaido — Etorofu, Kunashiri, Shikotan and the Habomai islets — that came under Russian control after Japan's defeat in World War II.

A Japanese foreign ministry official said Tokyo would raise concerns over Russia's installment of surface-to-ship missiles on Etorofu and other military activity elsewhere on the disputed islands, and seek an explanation from Moscow. It does not plan to push harder than that, said the official, who briefed reporters on the condition he not be named.

Japanese officials said the talks would include work on planning a visit by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to Moscow later this year. Logistics of visits by Japanese former residents of the disputed islands will also be addressed, they said.

While the countries remain at odds with no clear way forward in resolving the territorial dispute, they are discussing joint development of fisheries, tourism and other areas that might help bridge the gap.

Associated Press writers Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo and Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow contributed to this report.

HONG KONG (AP) — The three candidates vying to be Hong Kong's next leader squared off in a feisty debate in front of hundreds of voters who peppered them with questions. They wrangled over policy proposals for the semiautonomous Chinese city and took jabs at each other at Sunday night's forum. In one particularly testy exchange, frontrunner Carrie Lam, a former chief secretary, sniped at rival John Tsang for keeping a clean desk during his time as the city's finance chief, implying that he hadn't kept himself busy enough.

"No files, no papers, so I really envied him," Lam said, adding that her desk was always covered in documents. Tsang shot back that "besides working hard, we have to work smart," drawing cheers from the audience.

With the vote for Hong Kong's next chief executive set for Sunday March 26, the forum was one of the last big chances for the contenders to drum up support from among the 1,194 members of an election committee who take their cues from Beijing. Voters from among Hong Kong's 7.3 million residents have no say in choosing the chief executive.

Although the mustachioed Tsang, nicknamed "Pringles" or "Uncle Chips" for his resemblance to the snack food mascot, enjoys broad support, Lam, the city's former No. 2 ranking official, is widely expected to win.

The election committee, whose members organized and attended Sunday's debate, is heavily stacked with representatives of business, trade and professional groups who vote according to the wishes of China's communist leaders. There are also about 320 pro-democracy supporters among their ranks.

The electoral system was the main target of 2014's massive pro-democracy street protests that gripped the city for 79 days and grabbed world headlines, altering common views of Hong Kong as a ruthlessly efficient business center with little interest in politics.

In contrast to Lam, Tsang has an affable, easygoing persona and has deftly used social media to connect with ordinary people. He earned kudos in 2015 for cheering on Hong Kong's soccer team in World Cup qualifier matches against China, while other officials took a more politically correct noncommittal stance.

In a mock poll organized by Hong Kong University researchers, Tsang had a net support rate of 87.7 percent from about 65,000 votes cast electronically or in person. Lam had net negative support of 94.5 percent. A third candidate, ex-judge Woo Kwok-hing, had negative support of 12.3 percent.

"Nobody is in doubt that Carrie will win," because Beijing has been heavily lobbying pro-establishment election committee members to support her, said Willy Lam of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Willy Lam and Carrier Lam are not related.

Lam has Beijing's backing but she's been ridiculed for gaffes that give the impression she's out of touch with ordinary people. In one incident, Lam said she couldn't find toilet paper for the new apartment she moved to after vacating her official residence upon launching her campaign for chief executive. She was forced to make a late evening return to her government apartment to spend the night.

Despite that, Lam has a reputation for being a pragmatic and effective administrator. Beijing's support for her candidacy is seen as a reward for her loyalty while serving under the deeply unpopular current leader, Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying, known by his initials, C.Y.

Leung has passed on the opportunity to seek a second term in office, citing family reasons. His surprise announcement was seen by analysts as an indication that Beijing asked him to step aside in favor of someone less unpopular but who could still be trusted to carry out its agenda in Hong Kong.

The city is supposed to have much leeway in running its own affairs but recent incidents have stoked fears that Beijing is tightening its grip. Analysts said Beijing wants to ensure Hong Kong's next leader will have more support than Leung, who could never shake off his nickname "689," a reference to the number of votes he received — barely half of the total.

"The last time it was a bit humiliating, 689 was considered to be a bit low," said Willy Lam. "This time their top priority (in Beijing) is that Carrie must be seen as doing substantially better than C.Y., so that means at least a vote closer to 750."

Lam been dubbed C.Y. 2.0, because many Hong Kongers believe she'll adopt the same hard-line policies pursued by her former boss. Samson Yuen, a politics lecturer at the Open University of Hong Kong, predicted a Lam administration would continue to take actions that constrain the "organizational resources" of pro-democracy parties, making it difficult for them to survive.

Under Leung, the government won an unprecedented lawsuit last year disqualifying two activist lawmakers who advocated Hong Kong independence over improperly taking their oaths of office. It's pursuing similar suits against four others.

Carrie Lam "will inherit the tactics of C.Y. Leung, because if Carrie wins that means C.Y. will have a lot of influence over the political system," said Yuen. "That means such kind of repression will still go on. I do think the space for the pro-democracy movement will shrink."

SpaceX's Dragon cargo spacecraft is scheduled to splash down in the Pacific Ocean on Sunday, March 19, with more than 5,400 pounds of NASA cargo, and science and technology demonstration samples from the International Space Station.

Everything from stem cells that could help us understand how human cancers start and spread after being exposed to near zero-gravity, to equipment that is paving the way toward servicing and refueling satellites while they're in orbit will be on board.

After Dragon is recovered off the west coast of Baja California, some of the cargo will be removed and returned to NASA immediately while Dragon itself is prepared for a return trip to SpaceX's test facility in McGregor, Texas. There, the processing and further unloading of scientific samples and returning station hardware will continue.

A variety of technological and biological studies are returning in Dragon. The Microgravity Expanded Stem Cells investigation had crew members observe cell growth and other characteristics in microgravity.

This information will provide insight into how human cancers start and spread, which aids in the development of prevention and treatment plans. Results from this investigation could lead to the treatment of disease and injury in space, as well as provide a way to improve stem cell production for human therapy on Earth.

Samples from the Tissue Regeneration-Bone Defect study, a U.S. National Laboratory investigation sponsored by the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS) and the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command, studied what prevents vertebrates such as rodents and humans from re-growing lost bone and tissue, and how microgravity conditions impact the process.

Results will provide a new understanding of the biological reasons behind a human's inability to grow a lost limb at the wound site, and could lead to new treatment options for the more than 30 percent of the patient population who do not respond to current options for chronic non-healing wounds.

Several external payloads were removed from the space station and placed in the Dragon's trunk for disposal. The Optical PAyload for Lasercomm Science (OPALS) device tested the potential for using a laser to transmit data to Earth from space, indicating that high speed space to ground optical communications are possible from a fast moving spacecraft.

The Materials on International Space Station Experiment tested the radiation tolerance of a computer built from radiation-tolerant material to simulate work for a future long-term space mission.

The Dragon spacecraft lifted off from Launch Complex 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Feb. 19, carrying about 5,500 pounds of supplies and scientific cargo on the company's tenth commercial resupply mission to the station.